


when is a monster not a monster? (oh...)

by starryeyedknight



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Baby!Ben and Baby!Vanya, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pre-Season/Series 01, character angst, screw you reginald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29049012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedknight/pseuds/starryeyedknight
Summary: 'I wouldn’t want to go like that. If…you promise you’d be there, if I did?' Ben and Vanya discuss monsters and promises.
Kudos: 9





	when is a monster not a monster? (oh...)

AN: originally for the tumblr tuactober challenge '#1 – pinky swear’. Summary simply reads ‘screw you Reginald’.

  
-

  
the house is a dead thing, silent as a tomb. maybe there are houses where children run up and down the stairs for glasses of water and soothings from nightmares and just-one-more-story-please, but it’s not theirs. maybe there are houses where parents stay up late swapping tales of what the children did at school today, and can you believe how lucky we are to have them, but it’s not theirs.

maybe there are houses where a child sleeps, exhausted, from running around a park or playing it in the schoolyard. that’s not theirs. here they collapse into their beds, exhausted, from fighting men twice their size, from flinging knives and straining sinews to project themselves forwards and backwards in space. sometimes they cry out in their sleep from the things they’ve seen that day. sometimes from the things they’ve done.

it’s so quiet here. it makes the sound of sobbing ten times worse. broken little sounds, clattering helplessly through the room like birds with misshapen wings who already know their time on this earth will be short, brutish, and painful. a child’s cry is a horrible thing, but the sound of a child who cries and knows he will not be answered…

“it hurts,” ben chokes into his pillow, doubled over in pain. vanya isn’t sure whether to touch him or not. “every time they come through, it hurts – ”

diego had asked, with a naked envy that pleased their father more than any of them realised, how ben could do what he did, and whether those things were inside him all the time, and didn’t it hurt, letting them through? their father had given some long and rambling explanation of interdimensional portals and no lasting damage caused…but, vanya had thought, how would he know? it wasn’t as if the…the thing was coming through him, was it? how would he know if it hurt or not?

very shyly, she reaches out and pats her brother’s hair.

“i don’t want to do it again. i don’t – ”

“you can do something,” she says, sitting tentatively on the edge of the bed beside him. “that makes you special.”

“i’d rather be like you.”

vanya shakes her head. “no-one wants to be like me.”

there’s nothing then, but the sound of ben sniffling. he’s still rubbing at his belly.

“he was just a junkie,” ben whispers into his hands. “dad said no-one would miss him.”

vanya strokes her brother’s hair silently.

“dad said kill the next man who came at me in training,” he mumbles. “to…to unlock my potential. he said it was worth it. he said it was important, and i wanted to be good, i did, but the feel of it, vanya - it felt so warm and his neck just cracked…”

they are seven years old. it bears mentioning.

“i’m a monster.”

“you’re not,” vanya insists.

“i am.”

“you’re my brother. you’re not a monster, you’re…” she screws face up, tries to think of the best word, “monster-adjacent. it’s not your fault you can let them - those things - in. maybe they’d be lonely without you, anyway.”

ben gives a sort of muffled, damp laugh and reaches up to take her hand. “the look on the man’s face…it was horrible, vanya. he didn’t even have any friends, dad said, just some waste-away junkie he paid to come here; no-one would miss him.”

vanya wonders what that’s like. if she found herself alone and scared and far from home, would her siblings come for her?

“i wouldn’t want to go like that. if…you promise you’d be there, if i did?”

she extends her little finger, hooks it with his. “i promise.”

-

(i’m sorry, vanya thinks years later; as she sobs on her bed. allison is howling and luther’s locked himself in his room and klaus is having a panic attack and diego screams that it’s dad’s fault, that they weren't ready and all the while dad demands explanations, explanations, explanations even as the whole family crumbles around him… i’m so so sorry, i wasn’t even there; you shouldn’t have had to die like that with no-one to look after you and i’m so so sorry - )


End file.
